they were unable to meet with mandela due to his failing health. the president paid tribute to the falling icon counting himself among the millions influenced by mandela. >> the day he was released from prison gave me a sense of what human beings can do when they're guided by their hopes and not by their fears. and like so many around the globe, i cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that will nelson mandela set. >> want to bring in andrew young, civil rights leader and former ambassador to the united nations. welcome, as well as james joseph, former u.s. ambassador to south africa and duke university professor, both of who new mandela very well on a personal level. ambassador, i'd like to start with you. you draw parallels. you talk about how this was so important, so significant in some ways to the civil rights movement and the struggle at the time. for us, i was a college student when we had a lot of those divest from the from the south africa shantytowns in the yards of the campuses. tell us the connected you had with the civil